Oak Ridge’s first girl Eagle Scout

named a “Scout of the Year”

Haley Snyder, the first female in Oak Ridge to have achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, was honored Feb. 24 as one of four Scouts of the Year chosen by the Great Smoky Mountain Council of Scouts BSA.

All four students – two males and two females – were recognized at a dinner at the Knoxville Convention Center and were featured in interviews with reporter Don Dare on WATE-TV.

A graduate of Oak Ridge High School, Snyder also has an associate of science degree from Roane State Community College through its Middle College program. She is majoring in chemical engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and has an internship lined up for the fall at an International Paper facility in Rome, Ga.

Snyder was a member of Scouts BSA Troop 42G, a troop of 11 girls sponsored by First Presbyterian Church of Oak Ridge. Her Eagle Scout project was to expand the church’s community garden by building fenced-in garden plots beside the church’s education building, which houses the Early Head Start of Anderson County program.

The new garden, called the Welcome Garden, consists of seven garden beds, each 4 feet by 16 feet, and a chain link fence surrounding it. The new garden produces fresh vegetables distributed through the church’s monthly drive-thru Welcome Table meal-and-groceries program. It also offers learning opportunities for students in the Early Head Start program, which provides family-centered services for low-income families with young children.

On Jan. 19, when WATE-TV cameraman Dave Wignall was filming Dare’s interview with Snyder in the church’s parlor, Dare asked her if she thought of herself as a “trailblazer.”

She replied that she hadn’t thought of herself as a trailblazer but she was proud and surprised when a seven-year-old girl in her neighborhood who was aware of Snyder’s accomplishment told her, “Haley, I just joined Cub Scouts. I want to be just like you!”

Asked by Dare what she would say to girls rising in the scouting ranks, Haley replied, “Don’t be afraid to push yourself. Step out of your comfort zone. Don’t let anyone tell you that what you are doing isn’t going to be worth it in the long run because I promise it is.”

Snyder and Dare then walked to the Welcome Garden that she built on the church campus as her Eagle Scout project. Wignall filmed the second segment of the Dare interview with her in the garden.

When Dare asked her about her other Scout-related activities and opportunities to strengthen her leadership skills, she stated that last summer she was a ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, where she interacted with many BSA Scout troops as they began their 10- to 12-day backpacking trips. She trained and shadowed the groups on the trail for the first three days of their treks; every four days over the summer, she trained a new group.

Other students honored as Scout of the Year in the BSA district were Carson Whitehead, a star football player with the Powell Panthers, which won the state championship in the team’s division; Jayden Bryant, Venturer of the Year, and Aissata Ly, STEM Scout of the Year.

To see the WATE-TV video of the Dare interview with Snyder, click on this link:
Here is Haley’s… – Great Smoky Mountain Council, Boy Scouts

https://www.facebook.com/eastTNscouts/videos/614397779659694

CUTLINE:

Haley Snyder, Oak Ridge’s first female Eagle Scout and one of four Scouts of the Year honored by the Great Smoky Mountain Council of Scouts BSA, was interviewed by Don Dare of WATE-TV at First Presbyterian Church where she built a vegetable garden for her Eagle Scout project.

Shortly after the Anderson County Habitat for Humanity was formed in 1992, First Presbyterian Church of Oak Ridge sent a team to assist in the construction of affordable houses for low-income families. Calling themselves the Doctors of Drywall, the team members worked on weekends on houses for several years. Most were men with doctorates, including Tim Myrick, who died a few years ago.
“Tim was a huge supporter of and volunteer for Habitat,” said Charlotte Bowers Cunningham, executive director and construction manager of the recently formed Clinch River Habitat for Humanity, which serves both Anderson and Roane counties. She spoke recently to a Sunday school class at First Presbyterian. Myrick also served for multiple years as president of Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties, which has offices at First Presbyterian.
Cunningham said the local organization needs teams of volunteers from churches and companies who specialize in certain house construction tasks such as framing, flooring and installing cabinets.
Cunningham made a case for the importance of Habitat for Humanity for low-income people because of record high apartment rents and house prices and record low inventories of housing in East Tennessee, as well as the inflated prices of food and fuel. Families that qualify to apply for a Habitat house must earn less than 80% of the area median income, or under $50,000 for a family with five children.
“One of our goals is to get people off government assistance,” she said, “By bringing people’s house prices down, we enable them to have more money for food, gas and medication. We don’t want to pay for labor so we are dependent on volunteers to build affordable homes.”
An Oak Ridger and Roane County commissioner, Cunningham was asked to become executive director of the Roane County Habitat for Humanity while serving in the same position for the Anderson County Habitat. Early in 2020 during the pandemic lockdown, she and her husband handled the paperwork, solved debt and non-compliance problems and combined both outfits to form on July 1, 2020, the Clinch River Habitat for Humanity.
Currently, it is building a house in Harriman with assistance from carpentry students at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology in Harriman and volunteers from First Baptist Church of Kingston who specialize in framing.
Cunningham said that the old business model for funding Habitat houses has shifted from constant “begging” for money from large sources to securing extremely-low-interest loans from banks for Habitat house owners. (Some large sources are now giving their funds for charitable donations to the East Tennessee Foundation.)
“With our new approach we can build more houses and serve more families,” she said. “Fundraising is only part of my job now.”
The headquarters and one of this nonprofit organization’s two stores (called ReStores) are located on 111 Randolph Rd. in Oak Ridge. The other store and office are in Kingston.
To learn more about the Clinch River Habitat for Humanity, visit its website (https://clinchriverhfh.org/).

Cutlines:

Charlotte Bowers Cunningham is executive director and construction manager of the Clinch River Habitat for Humanity, which has an office and store (called ReStore) at 111 Randolph Rd.

Local Habitat for Humanity house with the family that will own and occupy it and the volunteers who helped build it.